Event[0] is worth a try for, if nothing else, its central conceit and experimental mechanic: interact with a natural-language parsing AI as your only real way to effect your environment. It's not very long, as befits an upgraded student project, but it's competent. It's competent even where it's not quite competent: the language parser is not that great; Kaizen will often talk about something completely unrelated when asked a direct question. Kaizen is also an AI from an alternate-history 1980s, has been floating in space for about thirty years, and has been traumatized at least three different ways. It makes sense that it's fairly scatterbrained. It's not too frustrating, but trying to determine Kaizen's feelings can be limited, especially when sometimes it seems rather moody. I consider this a good thing because it adds a layer of tension; you can't just butter it up to get enough Sympathy Points to get whatever you want, and the feeling that you have to consider Kaizen's feelings and opinions (even if you might not really have to) adds to the game's central conceit.

Is it worth twenty bucks, though? If you value games based on run-time, probably not, especially if you're not prone to investigating nooks and crannies or carefully interrogating AI. The plot itself is rather simple (go to A, do B, go to C, and so on) and quite linear. On the other hand, I'd say the story and the experiment deserve to be rewarded; something that could have easily gone quite wrong and been mostly frustrating is actually a very enjoyable experience. If you do drop twenty dollars on it, then, savor it for what it is and take the time to appreciate all the little details they inserted.

(Unimportant worldbuilding note: Purists might note that while it's set in an alternate timeline that diverged at some point after the war, it's still visibly the 80s we know and love aboard Nautilus despite her being built in an entirely different context. The Moody Blues still existed, Blade Runner was still made, and Neil Armstrong still stepped on the Moon despite nation-states (and by extension the superpowers) "popping out of existence" in favor of United Earth sometime before 1969. It's not a big deal, of course, but it is prone to fridge logic. A simple apologia for it would be to suggest that the story has been idiomatically translated; analogous cultural touchstones that make sense to us haver been substituted for the game-universe's "actual" details in order to make the game make sense.)

[i]Event[0][/i] is worth a try for, if nothing else, its central conceit and experimental mechanic: interact with a natural-language parsing AI as your only real way to effect your environment. It's not very long, as befits an upgraded student project, but it's competent. It's competent even where it's not quite competent: the language parser is not that great; Kaizen will often talk about something completely unrelated when asked a direct question. Kaizen is also an AI from an alternate-history 1980s, has been floating in space for about thirty years, and has been traumatized at least three different ways. It makes sense that it's fairly scatterbrained. It's not too frustrating, but trying to determine Kaizen's feelings can be limited, especially when sometimes it seems rather moody. I consider this a good thing because it adds a layer of tension; you can't just butter it up to get enough Sympathy Points to get whatever you want, and the feeling that you have to consider Kaizen's feelings and opinions (even if you might not really have to) adds to the game's central conceit. Is it worth twenty bucks, though? If you value games based on run-time, probably not, especially if you're not prone to investigating nooks and crannies or carefully interrogating AI. The plot itself is rather simple (go to A, do B, go to C, and so on) and quite linear. On the other hand, I'd say the story and the experiment deserve to be rewarded; something that could have easily gone quite wrong and been mostly frustrating is actually a very enjoyable experience. If you do drop twenty dollars on it, then, savor it for what it is and take the time to appreciate all the little details they inserted. (Unimportant worldbuilding note: Purists might note that while it's set in an alternate timeline that diverged at some point after the war, it's still visibly the 80s we know and love aboard [i]Nautilus[/i] despite her being built in an entirely different context. The Moody Blues still existed, [i]Blade Runner[/i] was still made, and Neil Armstrong still stepped on the Moon despite nation-states (and by extension the superpowers) "popping out of existence" in favor of United Earth sometime before 1969. It's not a big deal, of course, but it is prone to fridge logic. A simple apologia for it would be to suggest that the story has been idiomatically translated; analogous cultural touchstones that make sense to us haver been substituted for the game-universe's "actual" details in order to make the game make sense.)